The bit about Christmas amuses me, though - surely if she's so Catholic, she wouldn't be bothering with presents for Christmas because that takes the whole meaning out of it, no?
The bit about Christmas amuses me, though - surely if she's so Catholic, she wouldn't be bothering with presents for Christmas because that takes the whole meaning out of it, no?
That's the part that has always confused me about giving gifts on Christmas, it seems to me that anyone you present a gift to is equated with Jesus, which I would think would be labelled as blasphemy.
Being non-Christian myself, I haven't actually heard why this practice was adopted.
And there's probably some kind of Pagan roots in the whole story of Christmas, including the gifts from the Wise Men - which is where our own gift-giving might come from.
Either way, who are we to argue with it? It's not as if we dislike getting gifts at Christmas, is it?
Honestly, it does. Most of our modern Holidays coincide very closely with many Pagan (and largely Celtic) holidays.
I think that Christmas was based to 'replace' the Winter Solstice. Lemme see if I can grab Wikipedia's entry on Yule, I think it supports this as I've read about it in various books...
Makes you wonder what the first true religion was, or idea of gods or whatnot. It seems that every culture with it's own religion has based it on something else, and then built upon it. Which means that they've probably all grown from the original Religion.
True, but many things can still trace their way back to before Christianity - for example, the legend of St Nicholas in the Netherlands and in Flanders has him riding a horse over rooftops, which is thought have been derived from Odin's riding through the sky on a horse. He also has assistants, the Zwarte Pietin (Black Peters), which are thought of as remnants of the legend of the ravens that accompanied Wodan.
Nicholas may have been a real person who gave out gives through the goodness of his heart, but modern Christmas has pre-Christian ideas to thank for it's current state.
Maybe, never looked into it that much, but the whole date thing is obviously jesus birthday, and the wise men brought gifts. And now everyone celebrates christmas (the name too....christ mas....) even if they are not christian. Well, most people in some way or form.
Hybrid Mode
